TV Preview: The Queen's Birthday Party (BBC1, tonight 8pm)

Sir Tom Jones, Kyle Minogue, Sting, Craig David, Anne-Marie, Shawn Mendes, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Shaggy line up for a 92nd birthday celebration at the Royal Albert Hall. And we’re all invited...

(BBC)

To look at the television schedules, let alone our beloved press, you would think, wouldn’t you, that the British public are obsessed with the monarchy and all its works and marriages. Well, they are, aren’t they? So I guess there’s not that much wrong with giving people what they want. Especially if you’re the licence payer-funded national broadcasting company. We’ve just been treated to the nonagenarian double act that was Windsor and Attenborough, the Harry-Meghan knees-up isn’t far way, and it seems there will be no let-up next week either.

So, with a certain amount of weary predictability, the Queen’s 92nd birthday today is celebrated with The Queen’s Birthday Party, which could have had a more imaginative, conceptual, title I suppose, like “Rule” or “Assent To This!” or “Have You Come Far?”. Call it what you will, the peak-time Saturday night entertainment show features the sort of acts that, shall we say, would not have figured in the salad days of the Queen’s attendance at Royal Variety Performances and the like, when Arthur Askey, the ITMA gang, Flanagan and Allen and Wilson, Keppel and Betty (YouTube them, and take a trip back in time to a lost Britain) were the sort of cutting-edge performers people would pay good money to see (and which of course the royal family didn’t have to stump up for). Times change, and, in a line-up apparently part inspired by the musical tastes of Prince Harry, the Queen will have to sit through 90 minutes featuring the likes of Sir Tom Jones, Kyle Minogue, Sting, Craig David, Anne-Marie, Shawn Mendes, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Shaggy. It’s already been suggested that Shaggy could perform a little bit of hip hop for the Duke of Edinburgh, now recovering from his very own hip op, but seeing as he’s probably in a Zimmer frame he’ll be watching (if at all) proceedings on the telly from the comfort of a palatial drawing room and with a couple of codeine down him to contain the pain of the recent new joint.

Long to rain over us: Camilla comes under the spotlight (ITV)

Will he also be tuning in for ITV’s The Real Camilla: HRH the Duchess of Cornwall? It occurs to me that he might not make it to see his son crowned as Charles III (or maybe George VII, some say) and his daughter-in-law become Queen Camilla (or not) and that he probably knows the “real” Camilla quite well in any case. Indeed, this latest instalment in the Prince of Wales’ family brazen PR campaign to persuade Britain to fall in love with his second wife might be better titled “The Real Duchess of Cornwall: Camilla” seeing as we all see her traipsing around biscuit factories and the Republic of Vanuatu with her old man, but we perhaps don’t really know enough about some of the more prurient details about their long-term double adultery. There I go, though, obsessed with the royals. Oh dear, oh dear.

Like the royal family, it’s quite easy to mock the bien pensant eccentricities of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, but I am with him all the way in Britain’s Fat Fight with Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall. As a former fatty, I am in no doubt about the nature of this combat – it’s tough and friendless for the individual chubster faced with a delicious plate of fish and chips, but it is also a battle to be fought with the entrenched commercial interests of Big Food. Let’s face it, we’re frail and weak-willed and we need all the help we can get not to eat an entire packet of Oreos in one sitting, and Hugh is an outstandingly passionate ally in our cause.

Fab: ‘Cunk on Britain’ makes it to 1966 (BBC)

Channel 5 is, with too little attention, working hard to build up its public interest broadcasting – or journalism to use an old-fashioned term – and we should thus applaud their Housing season. It’s obviously one of the biggest issues facing the nation, and the Grenfell disaster, it hardly needs saying, highlighted many of the acute issues surrounding affordable safe homes for the population. I’ve picked Our Housing Crisis – Who’s to Blame?, presented by Michael Portillo, because it adds a bit of analysis to the many human stories; and Bad Tenants, Rogue Landlords, simply for the benefit of those of us who haven’t rented for many years, and who might like to take a peek at the realities of life on a tenancy agreement. Anyway, congratulations to Channel 5 for making such a serious effort on a series subject.

Yet again I can heartily recommend Cunk on Britain, which this week reaches its penultimate episode, when she arrives in the 20th century. I get the impression that the “talking heads” such as Robert Peston are starting to get the joke by this stage – that the credulous Cunk is in reality the super smart comedian Diane Morgan armed with lines devised by Charlie Brooker and the team, but it’s still a great watch. As, by the way, is The Secret Life of the Zoo, which promises us moth sex and African painted dog puppies, which are nearly as funny.

Split loyalties: Ruth (Debroah Findlay), Nina (Annabel Scholey), Hannah (Nicola Walker), and Rose (Fiona Button) (BBC)

Drama of the Week should be The Split, starring the ever more impressive Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan. It’s a steel-and-glass drama series, self-consciously modern and modish in style, settings, dialogue and plotlines and there’s really nothing wrong with that. Indeed, I doubt you could dream anything quite as contemporary as a divorce lawyer (Walker) with relationship (husband Nathan, Mangan) and work-life balance issues to focus on. Written by Abi Morgan, we’re also treated to Anthony Head, Stephen Tomkinson, Meera Syal, Deborah Findlay and Fiona Button. I just hope the actors got paid more than the lawyers they play would get (and gender equally, of course – otherwise grounds for their divorce from the BBC). The six-parter starts on Tuesday night, and features no members of the royal family.

The Queen’s Birthday Party (BBC1, tonight 8pm); The Real Camilla: HRH the Duchess of Cornwall (ITV, Monday 9pm); Britain’s Fat Fight with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (BBC!, Wednesday 9pm); Cunk on Britain (BBC2, Tuesday 10pm); Our Housing Crisis – Who’s to Blame? (Channel 5, Thursday 10pm); Bad Tenants, Rogue Landlords (Channel 5, Thursday 8pm); The Secret Life of the Zoo (Channel 4, Wednesday 8pm); The Split (BBC1, Tuesday 9pm)